Daily fitness and wellness tips

Category Archives: weight loss tips

Lifting weights helps shed off pounds, but it keeps the weight off too. You burn calories during strength training, and your body continues to burn calories even after. More calories are used to make and maintain muscle than fat, and strength training can boost your metabolism by 15%.

Lifting weights can even can help strengthen your bones. By putting the stress on your bones, you build up the bone density, ultimately preventing osteoporosis and other related bone diseases.

Strength training is also called resistance training because it involves firming up and toning your muscles by contracting them against a resisting force. Your balance and coordination will improve, as will your posture. More significantly, if you have poor flexibility and balance, strength training can reduce your risk of falling by as much as 40%, a vital benefit, particularly as you get older.

Strength training will even elevate your level of endorphins which will make you feel great. It is also a

Eat a healthy breakfast with some lean protein- maybe an egg white and veggie omelet and some fruit.

Skip the bread, it’s just empty calories.

Add lower calorie veggies to your plate. Turnips are a good choice at 51 calories per cup with potatoes ringing in at 214. Check with the host that they are not smothered with butter. Green beans have 44 calories per cup, much better than the casserole which has 341 calories and 22 grams of fat.

Avoid soda and alcoholic beverages. Instead have water or an herbal tea, maybe apple or pumpkin spice. Sweeten with a little honey or stevia. For a lower calories alcoholic beverage, try a white wine spritzer. It has about 96 calories. Add 4 oz. wine and 2 oz. club soda and a lemon for garnish.

For dessert, just have a little.

Your Plan for Friday: Kick up your cardio today! Go for a long run, bike ride or walk. Enjoy 3 servings of fruit today. Apples, berries and grapefruit are good choices.

Have a large green salad for one meal today, 2 meals would be better. Drink at least half your body weight in ounces of water.

3 Healthful Weight Loss Tips

1) Add half hour of exercise 6 days per week. Get up early, power walk at lunch, take a fitness class, ride your bike, go for a jog.. no excuses, just do it!!! And you will feel better as exercise kicks up endorphins, the feel good chemicals.

2) Have a large breakfast, high in lean protein. Add fruit and veggies. Check out my Quick and Healthy recipe link for ideas!!

3) Add 2 large salads daily with vinegar and little olive oil. Go easy on the oil as it is high in calories and fat, but it is necessary and healthy part of any nutrition program.

A pool might not be the first place you think of going when you’re looking to shape up and slim down—but perhaps it should be. No other workout burns calories, boosts metabolism, and firms every muscle in your body (without putting stress on your joints) better than a swimming workout.

These are a few workouts if you’re interested in using the pool to get some exercise:

Backstroke: Eyes up. Look straight up at the sky or ceiling—not at your toes, which causes your hips to sink—so your head is in line with your spine. Make a Y. Reach back with each arm at a 45-degree angle to your body; it places less stress on your shoulders and makes your stroke stronger.

Freestyle is also fan favorite because it’s easy to learn and it burns major calories, as do all these exercises.The swimming pool is a great place to burn calories and build muscle. If you’re a generally adventurous person, swim workouts can also be very helpful should you ever be in a situation where they can be applied to safety.

HIIT, (High intensity interval training) is a form of cardio training that involves cycles of high intensity bursts and low to moderate intensity recovery. This cardio workout is said to burn fat not only faster but more efficiently than that of a low intensity cardio workout such as jogging or going for a long run. This is because the higher intensity allows the body to burn fat faster in total than at lower intensity routines, although the ratio of fat to glycogen ratio is lower. Additionally, there’s also an ‘after burn’ effect known as EPOC (excess-post exercise oxygen consumption). This increases your metabolism and burns more calories for up to 24 hours after interval training.